Sarum by Edward Rutherfurd

How could the strangers live if they did not hunt?
     
    KRONA : ( seeing their mystification ): We bring our own animals.
     
    He showed them the animals in the boats. The hunters could still make nothing of this.
     
    KRONA : We want only the valley. All the other hunting grounds are yours. If you give us the valley, we will give you many gifts. But you must leave the valley and not hunt there. That must be our agreement. If you do this, we will live in peace.
     
    To give emphasis to his words, the women now brought from the boats six more of the fine bowls and three more tunics. To the hunters this seemed riches indeed.
    Krona waited without moving while they conferred amongst themselves. Taku, who had preceded the boats from the harbour, argued that they should kill the newcomers.
    “They are lying,” he said. “They will hunt all over our lands. Kill them now and take their gifts.” Several of the hunters agreed with him.
    “What Taku says may be true,” a stout elderly man called Magri replied. “But they are strong and well armed. Let them enter the valley. If they keep their word, it is well. If they have lied, then we can wait and ambush them later, when they are not prepared.”
    After some further argument, this wise and provisional plan was agreed.
    And so that day, in a matter of minutes, Krona bought the valley and the little hill of Sarum; the hunters, pleased with their new riches, departed to their camps along the rivers.
    The next morning Krona stalked up the small valley, pointing with his club to the boundaries that were to divide each homestead from the next. He allotted to each man and his family a parcel of land on the well-drained slopes that rose high above the river. There each family would be able to clear the ground, sow crops and raise their stock for generations to come. He inspected the river, and smiled to find it full of fish; his hard, weatherbeaten face creased with pleasure as he saw the swans which had built their nests in the reeds on the riverbank opposite the hill where he had decided to build his own farm.
    And now a most important event took place. Leading the entire band of settlers up the hill, with a speed and agility that were astonishing for a man his size, the medicine man directed them to clear a space at its summit some thirty feet across. Men, women and children all set to: for this was important and sacred work that no able-bodied person who feared the sun god could neglect. This took several hours, but when it was done, not only had they made a fine clearing, but they had also opened up a magnificent view. All around on the northern side they saw the endless folds of the lightly wooded high ground: below, and to the south, the broad rich valley of wood and marshland led into the blue distance, to the sea from which they had come; and a murmur of approval went up.
    Calling them to order, the medicine man commanded them to build a large fire in the centre; and while this was being done, he prepared himself for the all-important ceremony that was about to take place by painting his face chalk white with the powder he always carried with him. He also made a small incision in his finger and with the blood from this, he painted circles round his eyes.
    When all this work was completed, Krona himself solemnly led forward a lamb, one of the eight on which the future of the community’s flocks was to depend. No higher proof of their reverence for the sun god could be given than this present to him of such a precious commodity.
    Then, in his high, but carrying voice, the medicine man cried out:
    “Oh sun god, look down upon us now. You who shall bring us seedtime and harvest in this new land, you sun who direct the seasons, you who fatten our sheep and cattle and smile upon our crops – our lives and our valley are yours: accept our sacrifice.”
    Quickly he slit the lamb’s throat and laid it on the pyre; then, using the dry sticks which he rubbed into flame, with twigs